The crowd at WWDC went wild when Tim Cook said there was "one more thing" to reveal at Monday's keynote. That thing was Apple Music, a new streaming service that Apple unveiled with the help of celebrities, live music, and talk of completely changing how we listen to music.
Apple's penchant for overstating the novelty of its creations has become comical, because Apple Music's features are all things other services have done for years, with a punchline that dates back nearly a century. Once again, Apple claims to have invented the wheel, but this time it doesn't have its immaculate industrial design to back it up.
Apple Music will let users listen to anything they want (almost), streamed over the Internet. New artists will be able to share posts with followers, and automated suggestions and curated playlists will help users discover new music. It sounds amazing.
It's also Spotify. Almost every remarkable new feature in Apple Music sounds like a bullet point on Spotify's feature list. And Spotify isn't even the only service to offer this sort of selection or these types of suggestions.
The Connect section of Apple Music, which lets artists update fans, is even more of a bare reinvention of what already exists. Name a social network, and today's top bands are likely already interacting with fans there. The once-great MySpace was rebuilt to serve only that purpose. And then there's Bandcamp, which lets musicians and bands directly promote and sell their music.
The most shameless reinvention, however, goes to Beats 1, Apple's 24/7 global radio station. At least Apple used the word "radio" when announcing it, but the loudly hyped audio stream offers nothing new. In fact, as a single way for Apple to promote music, it stands to be the most horrifically homogenized listening experience possible.
Beats 1 will have three DJs across three major cities playing hand-selected music they consider "great." No automated playlists, no downtime, just music picked by humans. And that's fine. It's just something radio stations across the world have been doing for decades. And, thanks to services like TuneIn, we can listen to almost any of them from almost any device already. We have a wealth of selection of DJs, genres, locations, all offering something unique and most run by human beings.
Beats 1 is one station, one branded vision of great music. It sounds less like a way to listen to something new and unique and more a three-headed Apple commercial soundtrack. No matter how varied the music on Beats 1 can be, it's ultimately a homogenized experience; one station for millions of users.
Apple is smart to make its own radio station, but holding it up as one of the three legs of an entire service, with the other two legs already doing the jobs Spotify and MySpace have done for years, is ridiculous. Beats 1 isn't a music revolution, it's just a radio station. And while 24/7 global radio sounds appealing, one stream broadcast across the world is still one stream. I can already listen to jazz in Oakland or death metal in Oslo with a few taps. What does Beats 1 have to offer besides a single curated experience?
Ultimately, Apple is desperately trying to hide the fact that it's playing catch-up. iTunes ruled the music distribution scene for years, but the subscription streaming model has dug into it hard. This is Apple reworking its service to offer the same benefits as Spotify, masked by the company's typical marketing bombast and hyperbole to make it seem new and revolutionary.
Apple Music might be a fine new service. It will likely be a strong competitor with Spotify, and might even eclipse it considering Apple's enthusiastic user base. But it still feels like Apple is trying to take credit for inventing something we've already had for a long time.